Sueño: End ~ Past

There were three beast corpses on the plaza, creating three pools of black water that kept growing even after their death. The substance was so noxious that the wood platform in which one of them was had rotted completely and those that were in the ground started sinking in it as it became mud under them.

The priest raised his arms and the sky darkened at once, clouds appearing seemingly out of nowhere and blocking the sun from view. In a matter of seconds, hail started falling from the sky. The pieces of ice were quite considerable in size, falling with enough strength to pierce through the roofs of the houses.

The inn had two stories, and although the roof was giving through, the floor of the second story was still withstanding the brunt of hail. Even then, their already slim chances of escaping had now become non-existent.

Raz looked through the window. The villagers that were in the plaza attacking the beasts had managed to kill another two of them, but now were running away to protect themselves from the hail.

“Oh pious souls, don’t fear the ending that you have chosen. Soon, everyone will see the world just as I do. Don’t you all see that any fleeting pain is of no importance? Face this trial, and eternity will await us at the end.” Chanted the priest, undeterred by the hail he had brought.

Herm looked around the room. The situation had escalated to the point where even escape didn’t seem an option. The only hope seemed to be to find a way to hide from the storm before the second floor gave way or the beasts found them.

The inn was small, the reception was empty. Going upstairs was useless, but then, something extremely odd hit him. A profoundly putrid and rotten smell had started pouring into the room.

It couldn’t come from outside, no matter how many people were dead, the storm dissipated any smell that came from it, but somehow, an overpoweringly strong smell had reached them and threatened to make them puke right then and there.

Outside, the beasts now had the upper hand and were one by one hunting the people that they managed to find. It didn’t take them long to notice that most of the people had taken refuge inside a small temple, whose solid construction and heavy doors provided them the only hope of protection they had.

“I see you are trying to find protection in this time of need, but there’s no need to fear, as this is all as it should be. Rejoice in the glory of this promised day!”

The priest was walking through the hail, not a single piece of ice touching him, as if the rain avoided him. At his back, what now seemed like a current of black water was rotting everything it could find and covering the entire plaza at the city center, threatening to engulf it all in a swamp of rot.

The beasts went ahead and rammed through the church's door, but soon enough, a dense liquid fell on top of their heads once they managed to enter. Two villagers ran towards them with torches, lighting them on fire. The beasts retreated back, trying to dissipate the fire on the black mud.

“But what is this? Why would you have such things inside my holy temple? May I guess that you were thinking of doing this from the start? Such foolishness. In face of your unchangeable destiny, why not embrace acceptance instead of your petty hate?”

The villagers inside the temple were still armed, ready to attack the priest, but instead of entering, he just stood outside the door. The water that emanated from him was pouring inside the building, its poison consuming everything it could reach.

“But, even then, even if you choose to be rotten, scaredy, evil beings up to your last day on earth, I don’t need to return the cruelty you have shown me. Instead, let me give you all a last gift. A view few people have ever seen.”

The priest pulled back his hood, and carefully removed his mask. His eyes, full of what he considered love, looked at all the people inside the church. In all accounts, describing a beast was always a hard task as most people had not seen the animals they had taken their appearances from. But even if they knew them, not a single person could have described the face they saw that day. A face that had two eyes that meant destruction for all life, imbuing them with a terror they had never known. Almost all at once, all the people in the church fell dead.

And the beast had not taken a single step inside the building, all the traps they had readied for him, only destined to rot away as the water from the styx covered it all. And even then, eventually the sea would reach this place too, erasing any trace of what happened that day.

At the same time, Herm had managed to identify the cause of the odor, but sincerely wished to have never done so. At the side of the inn, in a shed now broken by the hail, was a pile of corpses, the corpses of those vagrants and travelers the village had killed for their rituals.

But, that was not the most important point in his mind, for he noticed something else. Besides the inn, was an entrance to a cellar, the lock protected by a chain, but even then, the single hope they had now.

Raz saw the same thing, and getting ahead of the situation, grabbed a lantern and lit it while Herm prepared for action. The kid, utterly scared from everything around him, just allowed her to guide him around while she helped to prepare. As quickly as he could, Herm ran towards the door and cut open the chain, which easily gave way thanks to the rust it had accumulated over time. Once the door opened, Raz and the kid followed him and they all took refuge inside.

What they thought would be a cellar to store wine, was actually an enormous basement. The horses that should have been outside were hidden in there, a ramp indicated that there was an exit that was probably in a building a couple dozen of meters away from the inn. But what most surprised them was the people.

At least a dozen people, of all ages and races, were trapped there. They weren’t tied, but they were joined between them by chains and one of them was tied to a covered wagon that was connected to the missing horses. In between the wagon and the horses, a small cart full of cargo was tied and covered by thick clothes, hiding whatever they contained.

“What the hell is going on here?” Asked Herm, stunned by his findings. The room was dark, but what little he managed to see before he closed the door of the cellar, was that the walls of the room were covered with paintings that indicated that whatever was going on, was related to the beasts and the religion they seem to profess.

“Please help us, the beasts are here!” Said a woman, completely desperate, but unable to move from her spot because of the chain.

The room was almost completely dark save for the lantern Raz had brought, but they had managed to see the sword Herm carried in his waist. But even then, the situation didn’t look good. They didn’t have a way to free all those people. And even if they did, escaping outside during the hailstorm would be impossible.

The people pleaded, the kid stayed silent, stunned by the whole situation. Raz was shocked, but in her mind, the options they had bounced around until she reached a single conclusion.

With the only method to escape from the town in the hands of the beasts, and the impossibility of leaving even the building they were in, there was only one way they were going to get out of there. After all, if they wanted these people dead, they would have killed them already, and the fact that they were in the cart indicated that they were going to move them elsewhere.

“Herm, you are not going to like this at all, but I have an idea.”

Certainly, he did not, but he couldn’t come up with anything better. Reluctant and unable to do anything but hope for the best, the three of them got on the cart, prepared to stow away inside and allow the beasts to unknowingly take them out of the city for themselves.

And so, by the end of the day, the entire village was wiped away. Not a single living, awake soul remained in it. And even then, almost all traces of the incident that took place would soon be taken away by the waters, the same ones that would eventually consume the entire world.